


Alkali Lake

by traumschwinge



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Murder, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 22:37:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12118692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: Alkali Lake was a fucking waking nightmare of a prison, Logan would have told anyone who wanted to listen, if only the people he saw each day didn’t already know that. It was just as well that it was a military prison, not exactly illegal, but also not under any entirely independent judiciary. It was where mutants from the entire eastern half of the US were taken once somebody, either in the police or in politics, had decided they should be gone. Some on the sole crime of “existing”, “breathing” or “looking not human enough”. Sure, Logan had been locked up because he’d stabbed somebody, but that was the exception, not the norm among the prisoners.And that was his opinion before he got his new cellmate, who made the notion of just "endure until it's over" so much harder for him.





	Alkali Lake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nikorys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikorys/gifts).



> Written for a tumblr prompt.
> 
> This is a dark one.

Alkali Lake was a fucking waking nightmare of a prison, Logan would have told anyone who wanted to listen, if only the people he saw each day didn’t already know that. It was just as well that it was a military prison, not exactly illegal, but also not under any entirely independent judiciary. It was where mutants from the entire eastern half of the US were taken once somebody, either in the police or in politics, had decided they should be gone. Some on the sole crime of “existing”, “breathing” or “looking not human enough”. Sure, Logan had been locked up because he’d stabbed somebody, but that was the exception, not the norm among the prisoners. Rumor had it that down two levels in solitary was a young mutant teen locked up for kissing a senator’s daughter.

And now Logan was getting a new cell mate. Alkali Lake was filling up, recently, forcing the prison to allow more than one mutant per cell, which had been against policy just months ago. Woe unto them who’d had to find out what mutants could come up between two people when they already saw others for sixteen hours a day, the prisoners had scoffed before the guards had put a rather final end to it. The poor sod saying it within earshot of the warden had yet to leave the infirmary.

Despite the announcement at breakfast to be ready for his new cellmate, and despite making Logan carry most of the furniture in with two guards as jeering onlookers, it took almost until lights out for the newcomer to arrive. Logan stood up from his bed and took up the pose the warden demanded all prisoners to take when they were in their cells with the door open and guards present and waited. The key was turned and the warden strolled in, glaring at Logan for a moment, then briefly looking around the room. When he was satisfied, he stepped outside again, and, at the snap of his fingers, the guards in the corridor threw the person they’d been holding between them into the cell and closed the door.

Logan counted what felt like the longest minute in his life off in his head before he dared to move. His new cellmate hadn’t moved, hadn’t even made a sound. It was worrying. He, and Logan prayed it was a he, for various reasons, just lay on the ground, looking like a bundle of discarded clothes.

Logan crouched down, about an arm's length off. “Hey, are you alri--alive?” he asked.

His new cellmate groaned softly.

“I’m Logan,” he said carefully.

His cellmate rolled his torso onto his side, groaning some more. He tried to push himself up with a hand but flinched when he touched the ground. Logan noticed that at least one of the fingers was crooked, bending at angles fingers weren’t supposed to go. Logan clenched a fist.

“Do you have a name?” Logan asked.

“Does it even matter?” his new cellmate asked. There were some sharp intakes of breath involved and a lot of groaned curses, but he managed to sit up and lean against one of the two closets. He’d been beaten badly, with bruises all over his face and some still bleeding cuts, too. One of his eyes was about to swell shut entirely. To Logan’s shock, when he looked past all that, his new cellmate looked like a kid, like he’d barely reached eighteen, if that.

“It matters to me,” Logan somehow got out past his shock and anger.

“I’m as good as dead already. I don’t need a name anymore.” The boy’s one working eye slipped closed for a moment. “Erik,” he said, so softly Logan had to process the word before he understood it.

“Did they…?”

“All fucking day.” With the help of the cupboard, Erik managed to get on his feet. He looked to the beds. When Logan pointed at one, Erik staggered over to it, collapsing on it almost instantly. It took him a bit to find a lying position that didn’t hurt from the looks of it. “The bastards took turns to keep going.”

“Please tell me you have a self-healing mutation,” Logan murmured, unsure what to say. The warden was cruel, always, but this was the first time he’d heard him treat a new prisoner like that. Usually, the old demon waited until he had an arbitrary reason to ruin somebody’s body.

“Hah, I wished,” Erik groaned. “And even so, I’m drugged up. No chance of using my mutation.”

Logan wanted to ask what Erik’s mutation was, but they were interrupted by the sudden lack of electric light. 

And then, the noise started.

* * *

 

The next morning, none of the prisoners looked happy. Most looked like they hadn’t gotten any sleep, after a night in which every single speaker in the prison had blasted some kind of ever changing noise. Despite all that, Erik had needed waking up from Logan, having passed out and not reacting until Logan had shaken him violently, out of fear that he might have died over night or, if he hadn’t, that the guards would take any excuse to rectify that.

Tension was palpable during breakfast and not of the good kind. Logan was certain the only reason no fight happened was because everyone was too tired to start it. Erik got a few interested looks, but everything died down without a word the moment Logan glared at them. Only one, a prisoner that had only arrived half a month earlier, tried to make eye contact with Erik despite Logan’s efforts. It only ended when a guard stepped in, shoving said prisoner head first in his breakfast.

By dinner, it was pretty clear that the guards would punish anyone even thinking of talking to Erik. Isolation within the crowd. Logan shuddered even thinking about it.

* * *

 

“What did you do?” Erik asked in the dark one night. It was the first time he started a conversation. His body had started to heal, slowly, not helped by the occasional punch the guards threw in, or even other prisoners who wanted to stay on the Warden’s side when Logan wasn’t looking. The look in Erik’s eyes felt like it was getting dimmer each day, Logan had noticed, but he had no idea what to do about it.

“I stabbed a man to death.”

There were a couple moments of silence, then, “Lie by omission is still a lie.”

“He shot me in the head, I stabbed him chest for his trouble. Police figured they couldn’t let a mutie they couldn’t kill walk their streets so I landed here.”

“Fuckers.”

“Most days, I think I deserve this by now. What about you?”

“Oh, I definitely deserve this.” Erik laughed, but there was no joy. “I killed five people in front of a crowd and cameras. Terrorism.”

Logan tried to imagine Erik doing that and something about the image didn’t add up. “What were they saying?”

“The usual.” Erik’s voice grew even hollower. “Other people are all vermin. Defend White Christian America. I couldn’t deal anymore. I was probably the dumbest shit to ever walked the earth that day.” I deserve to suffer before I die for that, Logan heard even though Erik didn’t say it. “So I skewered them, with their own podium.”

Logan cursed.

“Yeah I know. Everyone else will pay tenfold now.” Erik bit out another laugh. “The Warden’s a fucking fan of one of those bastards. Or was. I’m pretty sure he’s thanking whatever twisted fucker of a god he believes in that he’s getting to be creative with my punishment. Getting to avenge his martyr.”

“You killed  _ Stryker? _ That man was a fanatic.” Logan slapped a hand over his mouth. Had he been so loud he’d been heard? But no, minutes passed and nothing happened.

“Him and that Kelly asshole and three more of their kind.”

Senator Kelly too? Logan felt dizzy. He doubted there was a single mutant in America who’d heard of either of those men and never felt desperate anger and dread at them and Erik, a skinny, baby faced kid, had gone ahead and finally offed them? “Fucking hell.”

“Should’ve had a plan beyond ‘make em gone make em stop for good’,” Erik sighed. “I made it worse for everyone.” He sounded so dejected. Worried, too. “I’d understand if you wouldn’t wanna talk to me anymore.”

“Why?” Logan shook his head, remembering he couldn’t be seen in the dark and said instead, “The world’s better off without them.”

“But they’re now gonna round up all mutants they can find, all because of me,” Erik whispered.

Logan snorted. “Look around. They already did. Without having you to blame for. Who even told you that? The cops? The bastards who dragged you here? Why believe them?”

Erik didn’t respond. He didn’t respond for a long time. “You’re a good man. Way too good for this place. Or to be wasted on somebody like me.”

“Yeah yeah. And if you’d come over here, I’d even throw in a hug with the pep talk because heavens know you look like you need it,” Logan grumbled.

It was meant as a joke but he could hear Erik’s bed creak with movement.

He made room in his bed, holding the blanket open for Erik to slip in. “C’mere. I won’t do anything shifty.” Then, because he’d been in this hole for years and those had been lonely, added, “Unless you’d want me to.”

“I’m fine with the hug, thanks,” Erik murmured, slipping into Logan’s arms. He felt terribly fragile to Logan.

“Logan?” Erik asked after a long while. He touched Logan’s chest, at the sternum, with two fingers. “Are your bones metal?”

Logan’s grip around him tightened for a second. “How’d you know that?” He hadn’t meant to be unkind but he did sound it.

“I-” Erik’s heatbeat had started to flutter. Logan hated himself a little for even noticing. All the kid wanted was warmth and safety after all. “I can feel it.”

“Hm?”

“I can feel your bones,” Erik repeated, tracing the bone in Logan’s arm from wrist to elbow and back. “When I touch you. It’s faint, but… it’s still there.”

Heavy drops of tears hit Logan’s sleeve where Erik’s head was resting. “You ok?”

Erik nodded. “Just… elated. I guess. Imagine having gone blind and then seeing a faint light at the horizon. It’s not all gone. It’s still there. Just weak, I guess.”

“Don’t” Logan growled, feeling panicky all of a sudden. “Don’t you ever let that anyone hear. Not in here. If the suppressor drugs don’t work, they’ll fill you up so full you forget your own name. Never mention this again.”

Erik had gone horribly still in his arms.

Logan pulled him closer. “Shhh,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to scare you. I just want you to stay safe when you can.”

Erik nodded. “I’m… can I touch you a little longer? Just, like this. Nothing shifty. It just feels so good.”

Logan nodded, tucking Erik under his chin. “Go ahead. But let me sleep now.”

“Thank you, Logan.” Erik sighed. His touch now came with a strange tingle. “And good night.”

* * *

 

“Stryker's dead,” Logan whispered in a moment alone, so softly and not directed at anyone that it might just have been a breath. The workshop is loud. Logan only got assigned because he was muscular already, ready to haul heavy crates around all day.

The prisoner next to him stiffened for a second. They’d both been here too long. Logan knew him as a sensible man. That was why he had decided to share the info. THe guy waited until the hammer came down on whatever he was currently making to say, “No wonder the warden’s pissed.”

Logan nodded.

The conversation ends for the time being, only picking up far later, with the guy murmuring at Logan, “I’m glad the bastard’s gone.”

Logan nodded again. It was good to have his suspicions about people confirmed. “Mutant killed him.” He carefully watched for the reaction.

The guy grinned at the workpiece in his hand. “We all reap what we sow.” It was a sentence Stryker, and the Warden because of it, had liked to use.

Logan smirked, just for a second.

“It’s good to know they can bleed.”

That was it. The topic didn’t come up again in the weeks to follow. But Logan knew that there was a spreading ripple amongst the prisoners, of the info being passed on to those deemed trustworthy by those who knew.

* * *

 

Erik… Logan didn’t even understand where to start with him. When he saw him during the day, the boy looked like a living corpse, eyes empty, mouth always silent. He limped when he thought nobody was watching. Regularly from what Logan had heard from those that worked with Erik, guards would just drag him off for some rough housing when they wanted to blow off steam, probably with the explicit permission of the warden.

The only sentence anyone could remember Erik saying was, “Wouldn’t it be simpler just to kill me right here?” It had earned him a slap so hard he’d been unconscious for an hour after. Nobody had dared to check on him, not with two guards standing over him, waiting for him to wake up for another beating.

The nights were different. Erik sometimes even started conversations, relishing the nights when the guards once again blasted noise to keep them from sleeping, because it meant they didn’t have to whisper to talk. He didn’t sleep much anyway. Nor did he eat all that much. Logan wondered it that was part of the reason why Erik seemed to regain his powers, along with a building tolerance.

“How do you feel about levitation?” Erik asked one night. He’d crept into Logan’s bed almost as soon as the lights had been turned off, as he would most nights. But even those very few nights when he didn’t, Logan could feel his powers enveloping his bones. He could never feel them during the day, testament of Erik’s fine control over them.

“Me or you?” It had sounded like the proposition for experimentation. Logan was curious.

“You, for now.” Erik pressed his lips together. “Myself? I couldn’t even do that reliably before…”

Logan nodded. “Ok.”

Erik stood up, quiet as a whisper. “It’s easier if you’re on your back.”

Logan complied and closed his eyes. He hoped Erik knew what he was doing. He did. He had to, because Logan didn’t even notice he was hovering over his bed until he moved his arm and didn’t feel any solid resistance under him. “Fuck,” he breathed out. “And I’m not too heavy for you?”

Erik slowly let him down again. “Nah.” He sounded breathless anyway, and giddy. “You’re light as a feather.”

“Fuck,” Logan repeated. Then, “There’s so much metal in this place.”

“I know.” Erik’s tone was carefully blank. “Don’t I know that.”

* * *

 

It took asking for a few expensive favors back, but Logan managed to get one or two people to start talking to Erik behind the guards’ backs. It worked out, since, when they got caught and switched to pushing Erik around, most guards shrugged it off. 

After a while, Erik started mentioning names when talking to Logan.

Logan wondered if he should tell him that more than a few of those people thought that the whole prison should be leveled to the ground. Or, that most of them even thought that anyone who killed a man like Stryker was a hero.

He hadn’t told anyone that it’d been Erik.

* * *

 

One night, Erik pulled Logan from his bed onto the floor, pulled his pants down and rode him for longer than Logan had ever thought he’d be able to hold out for. Logan didn’t comment on it, not when he’d been able to make out Erik’s face about halfway through, or when he could feel how loose Erik’d been already.

They repeated that occasionally after, but with a minimum of talking beforehand.

* * *

 

“Your friends are preparing for a war,” Erik whispered one night, very softly against Logan’s ear. They’d been caught in bed together once by then, but since the guard seemed to think Logan was abusing that he was bigger and stronger and older, they turned a blind eye to the whole thing. “If I could get my hands on pen and paper, I could map the fixed patrol routes and, probably, this entire base. All doors, at the very least.”

Logan thought this over for a long time, running his fingers on the scars and scratches on Erik’s back while he was at it. “That’d be dangerous.”

“Less dangerous than not knowing where things is. Where guards will be,” Erik insisted. “If they want a fight, I want to help.”

Logan wanted to say no, desperately say no. But he also knew that he couldn’t stop Erik. And he was right. “I don’t want anyone to know that you can use your powers.”

“My full powers,” Erik whispered. “I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t want anyone, at all, to know that.” Logan cleared his throat. It wasn’t jealousy, he was being reasonable. “But if you can come up with an excuse why you know, go ahead.”

Erik shrugged, pressing closer. “I’ve seen most rooms by now anyway. GUards aren’t picky when they’re looking for empty rooms. And the warden prefers his office. Or rooms close by.” Erik paused. “The main room for surveillance is right up there, too.”

“You thought about this.”

“It’s not like... “ Erik bit his lip. “I don’t have much better to do. I’m being careful. But, sometimes, I just have to… Concentrate on other senses.”

Logan nodded. He’d noticed. Sometimes, when Erik was yet again in trouble with a guard with a shitty second, his bones would hum. “That room is one of those we’d have to take first.”

“You can lock it from the inside. Open the doors, take out the guards in there, close the doors, and the whole prison will be yours to open and close.” Erik put his head on Logan’s chest. “I feel the cables. They all meet there, like a bundle of nerves.”

* * *

 

Logan passed Erik’s info on, receiving more info and some writing materials in turn.

A couple of weeks passed in quiet preparation.

Logan could tell everyone was just waiting for the right moment now.

* * *

 

It happened during work time. It wasn’t planned, not entirely. At least, Logan hadn’t known more than “in these couple of days”. A guard touched a psionic Logan didn’t even know the name off and suddenly the guard was on his knees, puking his guts out. It was the cue everyone in the workshop had been waiting for. Workpieces made such good clubs.

Logan didn’t wait to see how the fight played out. The moment the door opened with reinforcements, he shouldered out, past the guards, ignoring the gunshots at him. Get to Erik, he told himself. Get the boy and drag him over to the control room and make sure he was there and safe and they’d both help as good as they could after that. 

Erik wasn’t at his workplace. At Logan’s frantic look, one prisoner he recognized as one of Erik’s acquaintances pointed at a guard on the floor, bleeding from a nasty wound in his neck, and then up.

Logan cursed, turned and ran upstairs, to the offices.

Erik found him rather than he found Erik. Logan had barely reached the hallway when a door opened and Erik stepped out, a hollow look in his eyes and blood all over his clothes. Logan ran up to him, unable to stop himself from making sure none of the blood was Erik’s. He couldn’t help but look past the kid into the room, though, noticing more blood and what he hoped were corpses because no living person should look like the men on the floor did.

“You ok?” Logan asked.

“Now? Yes.” Erik took Logan’s hand. “C’mon. This way.”

It was almost terrifying watching Erik use his powers. Thick doors crumbled at a single gesture, blocking the rooms beyond. He was gentler with the doors to the control room. He wasn’t any gentle with the men beyond, smashing one into a wall and shooting the other with his own gun.

Erik and Logan looked at the console under the screens. There were a lot of buttons.

“What now?” Logan asked. 

Erik shrugged and started pressing buttons, seemingly at random. He smirked eventually, pointing up at the screen showing the main gate slowly opening. However, he wasn’t done with the buttons, not for another couple of tries when he finally sighed. “All cells are open now. All doors I could find are, too.”

Logan nodded. “Should we go back ‘n help with the fighting, or…?” He wasn’t sure if he actually wanted Erik to get more opportunities to kill. Heavens knew he thought the boy deserved it, that the guards only got what they’d had coming, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Erik would regret it later.

“Most of the fighting is already over.” Erik shrugged. “Can’t feel many pistol shots anymore. And those I did I tried to shut down. I think I deflected a few straight up in the ceiling but I don’t know for sure from here, of course.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. Erik wasn’t telling some detail.

“Warden’s in his office,” Erik admitted with an eyeroll. “I’d rather pay him a visit then help with a fight already decided for our side.”

“Oh,” was all Logan could think of saying. Paying the warden a visit sounded so very tempting. He’d seen the damage he’d done to Erik. That alone… Logan’s claws sprang out, ready for usage. 

Erik looked at them with interest, but didn’t comment.

“Where?” Logan asked.

Erik’s voice shook a little. “Last room. Head of the hall. Can’t miss it. But…” He hugged himself with one arm, looking unsure and fragile all of a sudden. “I dunno if I can… could… I…”

Logan glared down the hall, daring any guard still alive to come down and face him. It stayed disappointingly empty. “I can do it. No problem.”

Erik nodded. There still was no color back in his face. The blood splatter looked bright red against his pale skin.  “I’ll open the door for you when you get there.” He sank down on the chair by the desk, gun in hand ready for use, just when Logan turned to leave.

Just as Erik had said, the warden’s office wasn’t hard to find. The door ripped from its hinges as Logan approached, clattering to the ground. The warden fired a whole clip into the hallway, but after the first had hit him in the shoulder, Logan pressed himself against a wall and waited for the shots to stop.

Cursing accompanied the warden’s effort to reload his gun. Logan stepped over the door, walking slowly around the desk. He grabbed the warden by his collar, janking him up so he could press him down on the desk for a better angle. “I could be cruel now,” Logan whispered, holding a claw to the man’s belly. Then, he brought it up to his neck. “But I need to tell myself that I’m better than you.”

He cut the warden’s neck open and let go, walking out of the office without a single look back.

He found Erik just as he’d left him, shaking gently. His eyes flittered over Logan, looking between the blood and his face, until he finally settled on his eyes.

“It’s over,” Logan promised. “He’s dead.”

Erik sagged with relief. “Let’s leave.” He closed his eyes, screwing them shut for a second. “I don’t want to stay. Not for anyone.”

Logan nodded. He knew there were enough hotheads among the prison population to make “war” more than idle talk. He didn’t want anything to do with it.

With Erik’s help, finding the car pool wasn’t hard. Nor was hotwiring one. The gate was open, too. And yet, when Logan wanted to pull the jeep they were about to steal out of its spot, Erik held up a hand. The doors to the backseat opened on their own accord.

Logan hadn’t noticed the two haggard looking teens that were standing by the door, peering at them. “Can we come?” the girl asked.

Erik nodded, but he was looking at Logan. “Hop on in,” Logan sighed. “This is probably the last ride out of this hellhole, anyway.”

* * *

 

They left the teens at a town two states over. There was a bus station there and trains, too. They’d make it, Logan reasoned. He didn’t ask Erik whether he wanted to go back to his family.

Nor did he ask when they switched cars. 

They didn’t talk much.

“I was thinking of trying to find an abandoned ranch, or farm, or hut, or just someplace to stay,” Logan admitted after about ten days.

Erik made a noncommittal noise.

“Can’t imagine living around people for now,” Logan went on.

“Me neither.” Erik sighed, staring out of the window. “Mom raised chicken when I was younger. Some of those would be nice. A vegetable garden and a well, too.”

Logan raised his eyes. That were more sentences in a row than he’d gotten out of Erik in the past couple of days. “As self-sufficient as possible?”

Erik nodded at his reflection in the window. “Less people to deal with.”

“So,” Logan needed to get it out of the way. He needed to hear what he already knew. “You’re gonna stay with me? For good?”

Erik shrugged. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

Logan shook his head. “Course I want ya to.”

* * *

 

They found an abandoned farm another few days later. The roof was half caved in, the barn came with a hole in a wall and there were small trees growing through the floorboards, but Logan figured it was nothing he couldn’t fix. More importantly, it was in the middle out of nowhere, with no other houses in sight for miles.

The next morning, an hour or two before noon, a truck pulled up in front of the house. “There’s nothing here to steal, y’hear?” the driver yelled, revolver in hand.

Logan put down the hammer he’d used to pull the nails out of the floorboards so he could get to the trees beneath and stepped outside. “Didn’t plan to.” He held up his hands. Another couple of bullets wouldn’t do him lasting harm, but he’d rather not have another murder on his hands. “Meant to do the opposite, actually.”

The driver looked him up and down, squinting. “You’re fixing this place back up?”

Logan shrugged. “Try’n to, at the very least.”

The driver holstered his gun. Logan noticed the membranes between his fingers only then. “Well.” The driver held up his hand, showing off the membranes. “Problem with that?”

Logan extended his claws. “Nah.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“If you’re fixing this place, I ain’t saying you can’t stay,” the driver shrugged. “‘s a quiet place out here and we like it that way. Take that as you like.” He leaned against the hood of his truck. “My place’s down the road. Come by if you find you need help. I’m the closest to a mayor or sheriff you’ll get out here, so if you’re doing a good enough job, I might fill the paperwork for this place for you in a year or two. Got all that?”

Logan had trouble picking his jaw up from the ground.

“It’s some hard times,” the mayor? Sheriff? grinned. “Joe.” He held out his hand.

“Logan.” Logan shook his hand. “And… thank you. I’m” He cleared his throat. “We’re both not used to kindness, so it might take us a couple of weeks to come ask for help.”

“Who’s with you?”

“My…” Logan didn’t want to lie. “Let’s leave it at nephew for now.”

Joe nodded. “Gotcha.” He waved toward the barn. Logan turned to see Erik frozen at the spot. He waved him over. “Is he…?”

“Yeah.”

Erik stopped a few paces from them, his eyes fixing on the gun, then at the membranes between Joe’s fingers, finally at Joe’s truck. “It’ll break down soon,” Erik announced. “There’s a giant spot of rust on the floor. You’ll start losing oil.” He shrugged.

“Huh, a really useful gift, then?” Joe grinned. “Tell you what, if you find a way to fix it, I’ll come by in a couple of days with some tools and food and all that.”

Erik shrugged. “Sure. There’s some scraps in the barn.”

Logan let out a breath. 

He hadn’t expected anything to ever go well in his life.

It was a pleasant surprise to be wrong.

* * *

 

Fixing the farm up turned out to be a project of a lifetime. The managed, barely, to fix the house enough for the winter, before said season arrived in the first year. Making the barn useable, adding a hen house and getting a plot of vegetables set up took another year. In between, they’d help out whenever Joe found an odd job that needed doing or whenever somebody just needed a few extra hands. It wasn’t bad, Logan thought. They got by.

It helped that they both were good with their hands, able to help with carpentry and machines.

After the first harvest, Joe had made sure he could reach Erik any time, showering him in praise for his useful mutation. Erik had accepted the phone pushed upon him, either to stop the flood or praise, or because he was actually pleased to be helpful.

Life wasn’t bad.


End file.
